


Twin Cinema

by stardropdream (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Matthew's birthday, but he doesn't really expect Alfred to know that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twin Cinema

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on December 23, 2010. 
> 
> Holiday fic for sunnysummoner, with the prompt: "Alfred takes a trip to Canada to de-stress and Matthew, being the good brother he is, entertains Alfred. Alfred spends the whole time...being himself and apparently doesn't realize it's Matthew's birthday...or does he? Alfred eventually gives him a present and maybe idk a surprise birthday cake or something? Basically Alfred not being a complete ass to his brother." Alfred's still kind of an ass, though, lol.

  
  
The knocking on the door is insistent and when Matthew finally goes to unlock the door, Alfred sweeps in. Matthew frowns as Alfred drops his bags and goes directly for the television, up on the second floor. Matthew stoops to pick up Alfred’s bags—damn, they’re heavy—and follows after him.  
  
“How did you figure out where I lived? You were supposed to go to the hotel,” Matthew says, doesn’t quite _whine_ because that would be stupid.   
  
Alfred calls down from the banister, “Lovino let it slip the other day you were living in little Italy now, so here I am.”  
  
“Great,” Matthew mutters to himself, lugging Alfred’s bag up the stairs. “I don’t know if you can stay here—”  
  
“Whatever, man, you live in a three-story duplex. I think you have room for me.”   
  
Matthew sighs through his nose, feeling very put upon but, naturally, unable to ever make up a good excuse to keep his brother from staying over. _There’s no room in this house for me, you, and your ego_ never seems like a good enough reason, though Matthew always itches for chances to use that expression because he thinks it’s hilarious. The problem is that it would be wasted on Alfred, who always misses (probably purposefully) all of Matthew’s snarky, slightly passive aggressive quips at his brother.   
  
Matthew cuts his loses and shouts out: “There’s no room for your ego, though!”  
  
“Ha ha!” Alfred laughs, but doesn’t really respond. “I’ll take this room.”  
  
Matthew cranes his neck and shouts, “That’s my room! Get out!”   
  
“Awww!”   
  
Matthew catches up to his brother and grabs him by the back of the collar. “Come _this way._ I’ll get you a futon or something.”   
  
Alfred is dragged through the house and eventually Matthew finds a suitable room he’s willing to part with for however long Alfred intends to stay for. Alfred seems to approve of the room, which is good because that means he won’t have to listen to his brother whine.   
  
Once everything is set up, Matthew asks, “Why are you here?”  
  
“Duh! I said I’d visit you before, you knew I was coming.”  
  
“I mean,” Matthew says, sighing, already feeling as if his brother will give him a hernia, “what are you doing at my house and not the hotel?”   
  
“Hotels are lame, why would I stay in a hotel when my brother has a _three story duplex?_ ”  
  
“Because,” Matthew says with a sigh, closing his eyes to collect his thoughts. “You just barge in here whenever you want but I—”  
  
He opens his eyes to see Alfred is gone and already stumbling down the stairs, saying something about being hungry and wanting to get Italian food. Matthew bites his teeth together and moans, knowing that he’s in for another one of _those_ visits with his brother.   
  
“Look, Alfred,” Matthew calls down the stairs, moving quickly down after his brother. “It’s not that I don’t mind seeing you—you’re my brother and all—and I knew you were coming. But there’s a difference between seeing you for a few hours a day and spending all day with you. You gotta know you’re—”  
  
He turns the corner into the kitchen to see Alfred already chewing on half a loaf of bread and digging around in the refrigerator. He looks up when Matthew enters, and grins around the wad of bread in his mouth. “Hey, don’t worry! I won’t be in your way.”   
  
Matthew is not convinced.  
  
“Hey, wanna make me pancakes?”   
  
Matthew feels his eyebrow twitch. “No.”  
  
“Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase? Come oooon. It was a long flight! I just wanted to spend more time with my little brotheeeeer.”   
  
“You are not the older brother,” Matthew says, an automatic quip.   
  
“I am too!” Alfred protests.   
  
“My birthday is before yours,” Matthew snaps, though knows this argument is futile because Alfred is too pig-headed to recognize _anyone’s_ birthdays other than his own, especially if other people’s birthdays are in July, too.   
  
“So?” Alfred asks. “That doesn’t mean anything! If we go by that logic, I totally became a country before you.”   
  
“If you’re the older brother, then I’m the Queen of England.”   
  
Alfred gives him a long-suffering look, as if he is entertaining a child. Matthew _hates_ it when Alfred does that. “Anyway,” he says, as if condescending to Matthew’s level—and god Matthew hates that, too—“Make me pancakes.”  
  
“No fucking way.”   
  
“Come oooooon! Mattiiiiiiiiie—”   
  
“No! And don’t talk like that, you sound like a thirteen-year-old.”   
  
Matthew stares at his brother, and then his brother does that _thing_ he does, when he puffs up his lower lip in a pout and makes his eyes all big and watery, like a fucking cat left out in the rain. Matthew sighs, a bit angrily, a bit hopelessly, and goes to the pantry to find his apron.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
The next few days, Alfred sleeps in the spare room. There’s one night when he sneaks into Matthew’s bed because they’d watched a horror movie and Alfred is a whimper ball of pathetic every single time they watch a horror movie. Matthew tells himself he needs to learn how to say no whenever Alfred suggests it. Alfred snuggles up to him, clinging to him, and keeps waking him up whenever Matthew falls asleep, asserting that he has to be the one to fall asleep first. When he does fall asleep, he keeps Matthew up with snores, kicks, and hogging all the blankets. Sometimes, Matthew finds it hard to like his brother.   
  
The days pass, though, and mostly Alfred keeps to himself. He eventually gets needy for attention and will come bug Matthew, whining about wanting pancakes or to go to an Italian restaurant or wondering why more people aren’t speaking their “weirdo French” because _isn’t that what you people do up here?_   
  
Matthew has never been more exhausted in his life (during peacetime, at least). He sleeps like a baby, and not even Alfred’s victorious shouts from down the hall—playing whatever video game he is playing—can’t wake him.  
  
The next day is Matthew’s birthday, but Alfred doesn’t say anything. He’s discovered Matthew has wi-fi now and is currently tapping away on his computer, looking through ridiculous websites and watching stupid youtube videos. Matthew wants to punch him. And tell him that he could do those things just as easily in a hotel or, better yet, back in the United States.   
  
“Hey,” Matthew says, knocking on the door. “I gotta go out and do some stuff.” _For my birthday_ he leaves off, hoping that his brother will realize it for himself, but knowing he won’t. Sometimes Matthew really hates how passive aggressive he can be, but he also hates confronting people—especially someone as bull-headed as his brother. “Will you be okay on your own?”  
  
Alfred doesn’t look up from a video of a cat playing on a keyboard and waves his hand absently. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine.”   
  
Matthew sighs. “Okay… um. I’ll see you later.”   
  
“Can I sleep in your hammock?” Alfred asks.  
  
“Knock yourself out,” Matthew mutters as he leaves, collecting his keys and heading towards the bus stop.   
  
Matthew spends a few hours in the office, looking some things up. He doesn’t want to drive up to Ottawa, so he spends the hours in Toronto, drifting between emails and faxes. When he finishes, Matthew feels that familiar urge to kill something or to get his aggression out somehow—and he wishes it were possible to crack his brother across the skull with a hockey stick.   
  
He gets back to his home as the sun is going down, and already there are fireworks going off outside the city limits. And some within the city limits, too. Matthew watches them go off with a frown. He stands on his porch for a long moment, feeling like he’s all alone in the world.   
  
And then he hears his brother yawn loudly and the hammock suspended between the wall and the porch post squeak. Matthew turns towards him, alarmed because he hadn’t seen him.   
  
“Hey,” Alfred says around his yawn, pushing his glasses up so he can rub his eyes when they water up. “Welcome back.”   
  
“Have you been out here all day?” Matthew asks, incredulous.   
  
“What? No way!” Alfred says, and laughs. “I took breaks. I even went to get Italian food!”   
  
“Finally,” Matthew says with a roll of his eyes.  
  
“It wasn’t very good,” Alfred says. “It’s better in New York.”   
  
Matthew rolls his eyes again and sits down on the chair beside the hammock. He reaches out his hand and swings his brother, much to his brother’s happiness. He laughs loudly and gives Matthew that hopeful look, obviously waiting for Matthew to do it again. With a sigh, Matthew reaches out and pushes his brother, placing his hand against his shoulder, the fabric of the hammock between them, and rocks him. Matthew hand-made that hammock years ago, and ever since he’d set it up, he hardly ever got to appreciate it. Alfred is the one to use it the most.   
  
He rocks his brother, and more fireworks go off.   
  
“They’re a few days too early! Ha ha!” Alfred announces, grinning.  
  
Matthew frowns. “For…?”  
  
“My birthday, duh!” Alfred says, and laughs again.   
  
Matthew feels his eyebrow twitch and he pushes his glasses up his nose. “I don’t think they’re celebrating _your_ birthday, Alfred.”   
  
“Hopefully not, otherwise they’d be totally way off base,” Alfred says, still grinning and either failing to notice or choosing to ignore Matthew’s exasperation.   
  
Matthew continues to push his brother, and the hammock squeaks as it rocks.   
  
“I’m going inside,” Matthew announces, standing up abruptly.   
  
Alfred blinks up at him. “Okay. You don’t need to announce it, man. It’s your house.”   
  
“Do you need anything?” Matthew asks, sighing, his shoulders slumping. He’s exhausted, worked to the bone, and stuck with a dick of a brother. When Alfred shakes his head, Matthew takes his leave, trekking into his house. It smells sweet on the air and Matthew sighs, hanging his summer jacket up on the hook and dumping his keys and wallet on the table as he passes towards the back of the house, towards the kitchen. He needs a beer, or to smash his face against the toaster. Whichever one will make him relax first.   
  
The sweet smell only grows as he enters the kitchen, and then he sees it. A lopsided cake on the countertop, with the icing kind of running on the side, a little pool of sugar on the counter. Matthew stares at it for a long moment, disbelieving, and then looks over his shoulder. Obviously he can’t see Alfred, as he’s outside the front of the house. Matthew stares back, frowning. Then he feels his heart swell as he approaches the cake and sees the messy, runny icing handwriting _Happy birthday, Mattie!_ The ‘t’s in ‘Mattie’ have long since run together and it looked as if Alfred accidentally misspelled birthday as ‘birthdey’ and tried to cover it up. He failed.   
  
Matthew sighs, and presses a hand to his forehead, pushing his hair from his face. “Damn you, Al.”   
  
Just whenever he thought he couldn’t stand his brother, he had to go and do something that was kind of thoughtful. The cake is nice. But so is the clean kitchen.   
  
And when Matthew turns his head, he sees the hastily wrapped gift on the countertop. He used Matthew’s wrapping paper he tucked away in the back of the spare room’s closet. It’s Christmas wrapping paper, but the point is moot. Matthew opens it and smiles a bit hopelessly at the stared and striped coffee mug. Typical. Underneath the mug is something a little more sensible, two tickets to a hockey match between the Ottawa Senators and the Buffalo Sabers, with a hastily sprawled note that says _My boys’ll win this year!_ Matthew appreciates the spirit, even if it’s dead wrong. He also appreciates the amount of planning, since the game isn’t for several months, in winter.   
  
Matthew sighs, sets the gifts down and heads back out towards the front porch. Alfred is still there when Matthew opens the door, and looks up expectantly when Matthew pops his head out.   
  
“You’re a bastard,” Matthew announces.   
  
“What the hell, that’s mean of you to say!” Alfred says, but doesn’t look insulted. He’s grinning that shit-eating grin of his, a cat that just ate the canary.   
  
Matthew walks over and bops his brother on the head. Alfred laughs and twists away as best he can in a hammock without falling out.   
  
“But, yeah. Thanks,” Matthew says.  
  
“For what?” Alfred says, playing innocent.   
  
Matthew rolls his eyes. And then shoves at his brother. “I want to sit in the hammock. Get up, you lazy sack.”   
  
“No way!” Alfred says. “I’ll fight you for it.”   
  
Matthew takes him up on that offer.


End file.
